From World Soicialist Web Site
WSWS : Workers Struggles : North America
America's workplaces--among
the deadliest in the
industrialized world
By Jerry White
13 February 1999
The February 1 tragedy at the Ford Rouge complex
in Michigan highlights what is a growing and
pervasive problem. On average 17 workers are
fatally injured at work every day in the US.
Annually more than 6,000 workers are killed and
another 50,000 to 60,000 workers die from
occupational diseases. In addition, 7 million
workers are injured on the job each year.
According to the latest available figures from the
National Census of Fatal Occupational injuries,
6,218 workers were killed in 1997, up from 6,112 the
year before. The largest portion of deaths (22
percent) involved workers killed in job-related
highway crashes, including truck drivers and
others who operate motor vehicles. Deaths from
on-the-job falls, railway crashes, and being caught
in running equipment, such as manufacturing and
agricultural machinery, all reached a six-year high
in 1997.
The US ranks worst in workplace injuries
compared with 15 other industrialized countries. It
has the highest occupational injury rate and trails
10 other nations with a fatality rate of 5.9 deaths
for every 100,000 workers. Great Britain and the
Netherlands reported job death rates of 1.1 for every
100,000 workers.
Norway invests the most money on job safety and
health activities--about $11.36 for every citizen. By
contrast, the US spends only about $1 per citizen
on worker safety programs. Only two countries
surveyed spend less. Great Britain reports having
more workplace health and safety inspectors than
any of the 15 nations studied--one inspector for
every 2,354 workers. America was second to last
with one inspector for every 54,435 workers.
More than 60 percent--281,000 reported cases--of
the reported workplace illnesses in 1997 involved
repetitive motion injuries, particularly in the auto
manufacturing, meatpacking, apparel and poultry
industries. Tens of thousands of workers also
became ill from exposure to harmful chemicals.
In 1971 the US government enacted the
Occupational Safety and Health Act. Though
extremely limited, the law subjected most private
employers, for the first time in US history, to safety
inspections and penalties for violations. Prior to its
enactment there was little to compel employers to
even report on job injuries and deaths. According
to some estimates over 187,000 lives have been
saved and millions of injuries prevented because of
these elemental protections.
The current OSHA law still does not cover 8.1
million state and local government employees.
Although these public employees encounter the
same hazards as private sector workers, in 27
states they are not provided with protection under
OSHA.
From the time of enactment, however, these
regulations were bitterly opposed by big business.
Over the last few years a number of bills have been
introduced in Congress to make compliance with
the federal Occupational Safety and Health Act
standards voluntary, limit OSHA standards, and
cut funding for safety training by 90 percent.
The Occupational Safety and Health
Administration's current budget is $336.7 million.
This is less in real dollar terms than the 1975
budget, although the nation's work force has
grown by nearly 50 million.
There are only 2,140 federal and state OSHA
inspectors responsible for enforcing the law at
more than 7 million workplaces. At its current
staffing and inspection levels, it would take federal
OSHA 109 years to inspect each workplace under
its jurisdiction just once.
In many cases even when OSHA inspections occur
they are largely ceremonial. Management is well
informed when an inspection is expected, and
penalties are nominal. Serious violations, defined
as posing a substantial probability of death or
serious physical harm to workers, carry an
average penalty of only $681. Wyoming has the
lowest average penalty for serious violations at
$125, while the highest average is Delaware's at
$1,332.
Even when large penalties are imposed for blatant
violations, OSHA has quietly allowed companies to
negotiate settlements of considerably lesser
amounts. During the late 1980s, in 24 examples of
OSHA "megafines" totaling $29.3 million, the
agency accepted settlements of $9.5 million,
representing an average reduction of 67.5 percent.
After six years of legal challenges, Ford Motor Co.
agreed to pay a $750,000 fine to the federal
government in August 1993 and to correct its
record keeping on shop floor injuries and illnesses.
The dispute dated back to 1987, when the OSHA
cited several companies, including Ford, Chrysler,
General Motors and Caterpillar, for deliberately
concealing eye injuries, back strains and chemical
exposures at its plants.
Michigan, where the Ford Rouge complex is
located, is one of 23 states that carries out its own
inspections, rather than using federal inspectors.
Between 1980 and 1998 the number of safety
inspections carried out by the Michigan
Occupational and Safety Administration fell by 73
percent, from 21,046 to 5,778. MIOSHA has only
42 inspectors to cover 216,000 workplaces in the
state. Last year 1,273 industrial locations out of
16,800 were inspected.
In addition to the erosion of health and safety
protections, over the last decade there have been
widespread changes in state workers'
compensation programs. These measures, pushed
by the employers and the insurance companies,
have reduced companies' payments and medical
coverage to injured workers, restricted a victim's
right to recover damages from negligent employers,
and allowed employers to force injured workers
back to the job as soon as possible.
By 1990 state legislators in Michigan boasted that
they had cut the average firm's workers'
compensation costs by 26 percent from a decade
earlier. Among the changes they instituted was a
return-to-work provision requiring workers to
accept any offer of "reasonable employment" and a
stronger "exclusive remedy provision" that limits an
injured worker to recover workers' compensation
benefits alone for work-related injuries or illness.
Other damage claims, including pain and
suffering, could only be allowed if a worker could
prove in court that an employer "specifically
intended an injury.'"
Michigan's changes also included a system
allowing employers to "shop around" for the least
expensive insurance carrier. By 1994 the state had
fully privatized its workers' compensation system
by selling it to private insurers such as Blue Cross
& Blue Shield of Michigan.
Nationally, according to the AFL-CIO, employer
premium costs fell by at least $1 billion between
1996 and 1997, while workers' compensation has
become the most profitable line of insurance in the
property/casualty field. At the same time disability
payments for injured workers have declined in
most states and lag far behind pre-injury wages.
One recent study in California said that Permanent
Partial Disability Benefits (PPD), which are
supposed to compensate a worker for the economic
loss, diminished wage earning capacity, or
impairment resulting from a permanent, but not
totally disabling condition, are just 40 to 50 percent
of pre-injury income.
See Also:
Second victim of Ford Rouge explosion buried
[13 February 1999]
Gas buildup blamed for deadly explosion at
Michigan power plant
Second Ford Rouge worker dies
[6 February 1999]
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